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Ceecee took a quick step back, and the children burst into giggles.
“You’re not in charge of us anymore,” said Moses with obvious delight. “Apollo’s our boss. He’s going to stay with us.”
Minnie laughed, and the other two children cheered.
Ceecee turned away in a swirl of flowered wrapper. “We’ll see how long he stays.” Billy followed with the trunk. He didn’t smile.
Moses poked out his tongue at the departing figure. It was a long tongue indeed, but a typical rude-boy gesture, until he popped his eyes out of their sockets so they bulged, showing how he had earned the name Frog Boy.
“Why did he lock you up?” I asked when I returned with a washtub owned by Miss Lightfoot that would serve as a bath.
“Oh, he don’t need no excuse,” said Moses as he frowned at the tub and backed away.
“He just didn’t want to bother with us,” said Bertha.
“I found extra clothes,” said Apollo, dragging an open box from the wagon. He wrinkled his nose. “They don’t look much cleaner.”
They would have to do until we did laundry. “A frog boy shouldn’t be afraid of water,” I told Moses as I filled the tub.
Moses stuck out his scrawny chest. “I ain’t afraid of nothin’.” He glared at Bertha.
“I won’t look,” said Bertha the Bear, and she turned her back.
Moses stripped off his shabby clothing and climbed into the water.
Apollo scrubbed Moses with a rag. The water became filthy in seconds.
We were on our fourth tub of water when a large, open cart pulled by two horses rumbled onto the field. An enormous fat man, red faced and out of breath, held the reins. A sign hung on the back of the cart—COME SEE DR. MINK’S MONSTER MENAGERIE. The location of the show had been painted over repeatedly. Today’s show would take place “behind Ringgold’s Livery.”
“What took you so long?” scolded Dr. Mink.
“I had to stop for lunch once or twice, didn’t I?” the fat man answered.
That was my introduction to Earle Johnson, the man who never left his cart.
“Get over here. We need to set up,” said Mink.
I helped the two other drivers unhitch the horses and raise the show tent around the fat man and the giant. Extra
sections were added on to each end, and a small section on the back for the performers’ convenience. The gaudily painted canvas banners were set up along the front of the tent to create an aisle behind. The audience would enter the aisle through a gap in the center of the banners after they paid for a ticket outside. This time a second set of smaller banners hung above the first. They portrayed the children, even Willie Northstar, now known as the Piebald Boy. I wondered how Dr. Mink had managed to have one painted while he traveled, and then I glimpsed the initials in the lower right-hand corner, E. G. Eustace Ginger.
“Where are their parents?” I asked Billy Sweet, who helped me raise the bally platform from which Dr. Mink would entice his audience.
He glanced up at the banners. “Sold ’em,” he said. “Took the money and signed legal papers that give Mink custody.”
Well, one paper had to be a forgery—how many others were as well, and where were they kept?
As I glanced over at Dr. Mink’s wagon, the door opened and a man shook Mink’s hand before he left.
“I see the boss is ‘fixing’ things for us,” remarked Billy. He noted my blank look. “Greasing the palm,” he said. “Paying the law to look the other way.”
A dark, queer lump settled in my gut. Forged papers must be one of the things sheriffs could be paid to overlook.
I helped Billy set up a canvas shelter. Underneath it he pieced together two halves of a large wooden wheel.
“I use ammonia,” said Billy, obviously pleased to have someone to boast to. “I keep a bottle under the wheel in a dish. I wait till the dupes place their bets, then dabs ammonia under a hole with few or no bets on it. The mouse thinks there’s one of its own at home and runs down that hole.”
This must be another activity the sheriff had been paid to ignore.
